Pune: Last rites of Anuj Bidve performed

Pune: The last rites of Anuj Bidve, the 23-
year-old student who was killed in Britain in an apparent case
of hate-crime, were performed here this evening.

Scores of people including his relatives, friends and
neighbours attended the funeral procession from Chandan Nagar
to Yeravada on the outskirts of the city, after the body was
brought from Manchester by his parents on Saturday.

The Bidves, who lost their only son in an unprovoked
attack by a 20-year-old British youth in Manchester on
December 26, were inconsolable as the body was taken out of
the house for the last journey.

Anuj`s father Subhash Bidve had said while in Britain
that he had confidence in the judicial system there, and
hoped that such crimes would not recur as a large number of
students go to Britain from India for higher studies.

"Our world is finished," Subhash had said while in
Britain to collect his son`s body.

A Manchester police team visited the family here early
this week to apprise of the sequence of events that led to the
tragic death of Anuj, who was doing his MS at Lancaster
University.

Pune mayor Mohansingh Rajpal, who attended the funeral,
said there was a need to counsel the students going abroad
about the racist undercurrents in the foreign countries.